Give a man a grant and can vandalism be art?
That is a question I was faced with today when I was walking up Snowdon. The national Theatre of Wales, and doing a ‘production’ of something called the gathering in Cwm Llam where the Watkin Path heads up snowdon.
There are a few ‘arty’ installation up there, although some are bizarre. A few latex gloove filled with water and having from a tree and large red carpet laid out down the incline. That you can see from the road and a few blocks in a stream covered in red material and then daubed all over a natural rock face in paint, a poem.
My only guess is they got a grant to do this, and the arty types that hover round national theatre groups like flies round ….. thought it would be a great idea. I however think they will have blightly the landscape they have chosen to help celebrate their tale for a good many years. As whilst it will clean off, the texture of the rock will mean a good scrubbing. Taking far longer to clean than the vandal that scoured his government support idea of art onto a landscape that is still trying to recover after being quarried.
I’d really like to know whether the national theatre of wales would have me arrested if I paint a 100ft poem of my choosing across their building and called it art? My guess is because I didn’t get a grant for it then it couldn’t possibly be art.
I hope the land owners who I think are the national trust see it and make sure they remove it in an environmentally sensitive way.
I would rant about the dam up there but will be told it is a weir!
